Heat intensifies on Rupert Murdoch in hacking scandal

MUMBAI: It was a day of double whammy for media conglomerate News Corp as British lawyer Mark Lewis, who has been pursuing the phone hacking scandal, said that he planned to take the case to United States, the centre of Murdoch?s global media empire.

However, the bigger threat for Murdoch comes from a British Parliamentary report into a phone hacking scandal which may lead eventually to News Corp being forced into cutting or selling its stake in the highly profitable pay-TV firm BSkyB, according to newswire Reuters.

Lewis said he would take legal action on behalf of three people which includes two sportsperson and an American citizen.

?The News of the World had thousands of people they hacked. Some of them were in America at the time, either traveling or resident there," he said.

Lewis?s clients also include the family of Milly Dowler, an abducted teenager who was murdered in 2002, and whose voice mail was said to have been hacked after she disappeared.

Coming back to the Parliamentary panel?s report on the hacking scandal, the Reuters report says that the Parliament?s culture committee is widely expected to criticise News Corp in its long-awaited report.

The report also says that the panel?s criticism could raise possibilities that the British broadcast watchdog Ofcom will take action against Rupert Murdoch?s media conglomerate.

The culture select committee could publish its findings and recommendations into the scandal by the end of April to which the government must respond within two months.

Ofcom is already conducting its own investigation into News Corp and BSkyB?s directors to ensure that directors of TV companies are "fit and proper" to hold a broadcast licence.

Earlier this month, James Murdoch had stepped down as the chairman of BSkyB. However, he continues to remain a board member. In February, the Jr Murdoch had stepped down as executive chairman of News International that is being probed by UK authorities for phone hacking surrounding its now defunct News of the World paper.